Photo of Sydney Sznajder

Sydney Sznajder

Sydney focuses on white collar defense, internal investigations, and compliance work. Sydney’s path to working as a white collar attorney began as a corporate editor at a risk investigative consultancy, where she edited risk reports and summaries of internal investigations for high-profile businesses. She enjoyed helping researchers communicate complex legal and commercial challenges and developed an interest in understanding the law and its relationship to the corporate world.

Contact:Read more about Sydney Sznajder

On October 2, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas stayed Commodity Futures Trading Commission, et al. v. TMTE Inc., et al., a case with potentially consequential implications for the commodities and derivatives markets. As we discussed in our prior update, this $185 million fraud suit was filed against two California precious metals dealers by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and 30 state regulators. In July, the Court denied summary judgment to both parties. The most significant holding from that order was the finding that gold and silver are not commodities under Section 1 of the CFTC’s enacting statute, the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).

Washington, D.C., USA- January13, 2020: Sign of The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) at its headquarters in Washington, an agency of the US government.

Within the Government Enforcement, Compliance & Investigations Report, we plan to bring you periodic updates from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In this first one, we are excited to announce a new addition to our team (and co-author of this post)—Jeff Le Riche. Jeff joins us after 20 years with the CFTC. We are thrilled to have him on board.

Now on to our updates from the CFTC.

Aerial top view full speed container ship in the sea for logisti

On August 29, 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a new Trade Fraud Task Force, which will leverage resources from DOJ’s Civil and Criminal Divisions as well as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enforce tariff and duties evasion, smuggling, and other import violations. The initiative furthers the Trump Administration’s “America First Trade Policy” announced on Inauguration Day and in Executive Order 14243, which promotes information-sharing between agencies to support the administration’s overall goals of combating waste, fraud, and abuse.

Washington, D.C., USA- January13, 2020: Sign of The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) at its headquarters in Washington, an agency of the US government.

On August 1, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Acting Chairman Caroline D. Pham announced a “crypto sprint” aimed at actualizing recommendations from a recent report published by President Donald Trump’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets. The initiative serves as Acting Chairman Pham’s first steps toward reshaping digital assets regulation in compliance with the administration’s earlier policy memorandum instructing agencies to pull back on prosecutions in the digital assets space.